David Durman’s workplace AI exemption began not with a dispute over software, but with a broader question: whether a non-theistic moral framework can command the same protection as religious faith.

• As AI use spread through daily work, Durman, a University of Kentucky administrator who helps researchers pursue grants, grew concerned that dependence on the technology would weaken critical thought. Humanism, he said, is rooted in human well-being and flourishing, and AI’s growing role clashed with that outlook. “The way we become moral actors for ourselves and for others is through the active application of our minds,” he said.¹

• He then turned to the American Humanist Association after learning that Erin Maus, a Unitarian Universalist software engineer, had secured similar protections. Durman’s case became the first publicly discussed accommodation allowing a Humanist to abstain from AI at work.²

His objections go beyond cognition. In a statement for the AHA, Durman argued that AI threatens jobs, imposes environmental costs and risks replacing or appropriating human creativity. “AI is interfering with people’s ability to earn a living,” he wrote, while its impact on art and literature could damage the cultural elements that help society flourish.¹

• The university granted the request, but did not embrace a blanket rule. Spokesperson Jay Blanton said Kentucky assesses religious-accommodation requests case by case, weighing job duties and circumstances. In Durman’s case, the school concluded he could still perform his essential functions without AI; future arrangements may be revisited as work changes.¹

That distinction is central to the episode. Durman says he is not trying to dictate how others use AI. Instead, he hopes workers with comparable convictions—religious or secular—will press their concerns through the channels available to them.¹